No, not posting pictures of the kids or the family pet. I’m writing of the tendency at times for blogger disagreements to get personal. I’ve been accused a few times of launching ad hominems. Sometimes the charge is valid. Other times I think I’m just making a natural response to being [...]

Goggles is a very simple flight simulator, but with a cool twist: you can fly over a selection of locations using the photo images from Google maps. And if you’re prepared to fiddle around a bit, you can make it start from your own town. Take a flight over Swansea! (To make this work, don’t [...]

Greenpeace have launched a campaign to make Apple Computers greener
We love Apple. Apple knows more about “clean” design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have agreed to abandon? A cutting edge company shouldn’t be cutting lives short by exposing [...]

In an earlier post, I promoted the book The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War authored by Andrew J. Bacevich. (Oxford University Press: New York, 2005). Richard asked for a flavor of the argument. That I will do, but this will not be a book review because Iâ€™m not knowledgeable [...]

On a more serious note, there follows the third hymn I wrote while on holiday in August. I’ve been meaning to do something for a while - at least since I did “Ten Propositions on Penal Substitution” for Ben Myers at faith-theology.blogspot.com - to bring together several models of the atonement in one hymn. [...]

My mother just sent me the following, which I have slightly adapted.
A kindergarten teacher gave her class a Show and Tell assignment. Each pupil was instructed to bring in a religious object to share with the class.
The first pupil got up in front of the class and said, “My name is Benjamin, I’m Jewish, [...]

On a recent trip to see my father, I was picking through various magazines looking for something of interest. On the cover of one of the ladies’ magazines was the heading Get Your Best Butt Ever. It is to be expected that many of the articles in such magazines will be geared toward [...]

Who would true valour see
Let him come hither
One here will constant be
Come wind, come weather
There’s no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent to be a pilgrim
Whoso beset him round
With dismal stories
Who but themselves confound
His strength the more is
No lion can him fright
He’ll with a giant fight
But he will have a right to be [...]

One of the most gratifying things about this blogging experience has been the extent to which it has been possible to develop what I’m sure are genuine friendships. There are a number of people who I have ‘met’ only virtually and yet I feel confident that I can count them among my friends. National borders [...]

I’ve long since thought that the division between ‘Anglo saxon’ England and the ‘Celtic’ nations of Wales and Scotland (& Cornwall!) is a false one. After all, Welsh was once spoken much more widely than Wales on these islands. Now it seems that new genetic research has given some weight to my suspicions.
The first DNA [...]

BBC NEWS: More jobs lost at chocolate firm
Food giant Nestle is to axe 645 jobs in York as part of a major restructuring plan, it has announced.
The Swiss firm said part of its site in the city would be sold and some products moved to other factories in the UK and in Europe.
Union officials have [...]

Despite what I said the other day, oil companies are still responsible for providing significant funds to lobby groups ’sceptical’ about the reality of global warming. Now it has emerged that Britain’s leading scientific institution, the Royal Society, has written to ExxonMobil asking them to withdraw from funding groups which have “misrepresented the science of [...]